Right, Sorry
by Phantomhill
Summary: A quick one-shot with Merlin finding himself in Hogwarts, Potter era.
1. Chapter 1

It wasn't his fault that he disappeared.

One second, he was being battered around by Arthur, wielding a sword, and the next, he wasn't. Merlin wasn't entirely sure where he was. He did know that it felt like his magic was boiling underneath his skin. He did know that he was still holding the practice sword Arthur had given him. He did know that he was definitely not in Camelot's courtyard. The long table in front of him was indication enough of that.

Merlin stumbled as his boiling magic settled to simple currents racing under his skin and the last of whatever magic had taken him dissolved. It was silent. He could hear the hundreds of people around him breathing, just the same as he could feel the mass of magic in the room. It smelled like all those kids—all those teenagers—were having a feast. The food spread on the raised table before him proved it.

The adults behind the table's feast were silent, just the same as the kids. They were pointing sticks at him as though they were some kind of weapon. Maybe they intended to poke his eyes out with them. Merlin kept his sword raised even as the oldest of them placed his empty hands on the table and leant forwards, something sparkling in his blue eyes.

He opened his mouth draped in a long silver beard and spoke, but the sounds were nothing like Merlin had heard before. So, Merlin waited, and the man stopped talking, a sort of bemused smile resting on his lined face. Merlin shrugged and returned the expression. He lowered the sword. He might not be able to understand what the man was saying—actually, now that he was listening for it, whatever any of the whisperers were saying—but there was something about the fellow that reminded him a bit of Gaius. So Merlin let his gaze wander to the candles floating above the four long tables behind him, and that the night sky was apparently very clear with a full moon, and that there were a few hovering transparent figures, and decided that he really ought to inform the old man that if Uther had ever found out about this place, they would all be executed; he wasn't entirely sure what Arthur would do.

The old man began speaking again, and Merlin refocused on him. There were words that sounded familiar, but they were distorted. He still couldn't make head or tails of what the grandfatherly man was saying. The others at the man's table had, for the most part, put their sticks away or out of sight. A particularly gloomy and pale man clothed in black seemed to be the exception.

"I still don't know what you're saying," Merlin said when the old fellow finished. The whispers coming from the tables of children and teenagers increased in their volume. Apparently, none of them could understand him, either. The silver-haired man pulled a stick from his robes and pointed it at Merlin. Merlin raised the sword again, but the man shook his head, still smiling, and Merlin found himself letting the sword tip drop to the floor once more. The worst this ancient man could do was poke him, right?

The man said something that sounded vaguely like the language a visitor from Southern Gaul had spoken, and his stick glowed. Merlin felt his head warm, but something compelled him not to stop the magic, for clearly that's what it was, even if it was through a stick. As he permitted the old man's weird magic to bounce around in his head and warm his thoughts, he noticed that the murmurs and whispers from behind him were becoming increasingly distinct. When his head cooled, the old sorcerer lowered his stick, and the hall fell silent.

"Now then," the man said. Merlin smiled at the fact that the spell the sorcerer had cast was one of translation. He ought to ask how it was done. "I am Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Who might you be?" Witchcraft and wizardry?

"Sorry," Merlin began. He halted, confused for a moment by the language which he somehow understood but had never learned. He began again: "Ehm, but you do know that if the king finds you, he might execute you." The headmaster's smile remained fixed on his face.

"Thank you for the warning, young man." The whispers behind Merlin charged forth once more, but Albus silenced them with a gentle but commanding look. "Which king might this be?"

Merlin raised an eyebrow, a peculiar and confused smile on his face. "King Arthur, sir." Headmaster Dumbledore gave no sign of recognition. "Of Camelot?" Quiet whispers rose into full-blown conversation. The headmaster once more silenced them.

"How do you know this, young man?" Dumbledore asked. Merlin glanced around at the people whom he supposed were students, if this were a school. A school of witchcraft and wizardry. He couldn't help but smile at the concept.

"It's common knowledge." He stared at the wizard. "Where did you say I am again?"

"Hogwarts. What is your name, young man?" Merlin blinked, then grinned.

"Right, sorry. My name's Merlin."

* * *

AN:

Because I love when Merlin randomly appears in Hogwarts.

This has been floating around my computer for over a year; I probably won't continue with an actual story.


	2. Chapter 2

"Come again?"

Merlin glanced around. Apparently, that wasn't the answer they were expecting. "My name's Merlin." He was saying it right—he knew how to say his own name, thank you very much. He could even say his name when he couldn't hear himself think like right now, with all the students in some commotion and the teachers just as talkative. His sword was growing impossibly heavy, Merlin realized, and the food was beginning to smell in tandem delightful and nauseating.

"The result of unfortunate naming practices?" The dour teacher, the one who had not pocketed his stick like the others at the table, muttered, but Dumbledore shook his head. Merlin lost the rest of their conversation to the noise. Even those transparent figures floating about seemed to have fallen into distress. At least the sky remained unchanged.

These people clearly knew his name, and that was never good. Merlin leaned against the sword, using it like a cane, and tried to force himself to relax as the teachers theorized and bickered and the students shouted conspiracies to the sky. He hadn't felt himself tense up, but if these people knew who he was—as Merlin, not Emrys—then who else knew? A lump was rising in his throat, and his stomach was deciding to knot, probably because the thought of fleeing Camelot was fastening itself in Merlin's mind. Or maybe it was just the commotion, or the sudden teleportation. Probably a little of each.

Dumbledore stood. Hush tore across the room, and for the first time since Merlin had appeared in this school, all eyes turned to the old man. "Students," Dumbledore said, projecting his voice through the massive stone room as well as Uther or Arthur could, "return to your meal. We will have our visitor sorted shortly, but in the meantime, good food should never go to waste." Quieter, he continued, "come along, Merlin. It would be best to discuss your situation away from prying ears—not that the entire school will not know by breakfast." He removed himself from his raised table and beckoned, and Merlin, for lack of anything better to do and no desire to remain in the limelight, followed after.

Merlin had known exactly how loud it had been in there (somewhere between Arthur winning a fighting tournament and the knights after a hunt), but he'd had no way to predict the silence that came as soon as the great doors slammed shut. No, not slammed, he corrected himself; simply, shut. There was nothing personable about it, unlike with the rest of the castle. In so many ways, it looked like home, but the resemblance halted at the stones and statues. Arthur and the others would be listing sorcerers of any skill by now and preparing to track them down to kill them. Merlin spared a glance at a moving oil painting and added it to his list of blatantly expressed magic. He had to get back before the knights killed an innocent condemned by their magic. And maybe, just maybe, he could have the druids spread news about this singular school of sorcery (witchcraft and wizardry, he remembered Dumbledore saying), and maybe, they could take refuge. Or, he mused, slight and forced smile falling from his face, someone would lead the knights here before he could reason with them. Before he could tell Arthur that… that he…

"This situation is quite baffling, wouldn't you agree?" Dumbledore stopped at a statue and clearly dictated some word that the translation spell couldn't translate. The griffin twisted out of the way and Merlin blankly wondered if it was enchanted similarly to what he had done on the dog statue years previous. He liked magic—really, he did—but this as an awful lot. His eyes were swimming and his arms were mostly numb. He'd even managed to forget that he was hauling a sword through this place, and if that wasn't a sign of his onset exhaustion, he didn't know what was.

The staircase spat them out in a room lined with more of those moving paintings and cluttered with items Merlin was entirely unsure whether or not he wanted to know the purpose of. There was a large, featherless chicken on a bird perch, too. Merlin held his comment.

Dumbledore went around to the other side of the desk and sat. The chair on Merlin's side scooted back from the desk with a flick of Dumbledore's finger, and Merlin accepted the invitation, realizing that Dumbledore's eyes did not flash with the gold of magic. But maybe that's just how it was here, wherever he was. Maybe magic manifested itself differently for these people, and, sure, he'd never heard of magic being that different from place to place, but there was always to possibility, wasn't there? It would be a very useful skill to have.

"Let's start from the beginning, shall we?" Dumbledore smiled, and Merlin returned it. "You said your name is Merlin?" Merlin nodded. The headmaster was still stuck on his name. Sure, he was the only Merlin he knew, but it wasn't a terribly odd sounding name, just a bit uncommon. "Where are you from, Merlin?"

"Ealdor, in Essetir, but I live in Camelot now. Where are we?"

"Hogwarts is in Scotland." Scotland? Merlin wasn't the best at geography, but he was reasonably certain that he had never heard of Scotland before. "How did you come to be here? Jelly baby?" Merlin took the yellow object and held it, wondering if something that vibrant was safe to ingest, before deciding that if Dumbledore had wanted to kill him, the headmaster would have tried already. It was weird and sickeningly sweet.

"Er," he began once he managed to swallow the jelly baby, "I'm not sure what happened. Arthur was batting me around for a sword practice, then I was here." He shrugged and rubbed the back of his head. "I'm still not entirely sure where here is."

"I see." Dumbledore offered him another jelly baby, this one green, but Merlin waved it off. "By Arthur, who do you mean?"

"Arthur Pendragon the prat, King of Camelot. I'm his manservant." The featherless chicken shuffled on its perch and caught fire. "Oh!"

There had to something to suffocate the flames in here. There had to be. Merlin looked around. Whosamawatsits and babbles and knickknacks, but no water. No cloth. Not even a napkin. He tried to pat the flames down with his hands. They were going out, but the chicken—it wasn't a chicken. Chickens panic when they caught fire (he knew that one from experience), and chickens don't normally spontaneously combust. He pinched out the last flame and rubbed his hands together, feeling for any blisters, but finding nothing a but a residual warmth. Fire was supposed to burn. He kept his hands out of sight. "What is that?"

"Fawkes." Dumbledore scratched under the bird's charred chin. "A phoenix. How burned are your hands? Phoenix fire is notoriously dangerous, and I fear that while you actions were well intentioned, they may have just assured you a place in St. Mungo's." His neckerchief—that would have worked. Dumbledore held out his hands, clearing waiting.

"I'm fine, really. Had much worse, you know, sharpening swords and fighting the cooks—the head chef is really a… very scary…" Merlin trailed off at Dumbledore's implacable smile and unreadable eyes. He showed the headmaster his hands and stared steadfastly down at the stone floor where his sword had fallen. Not even half an hour, and had already managed to reveal himself. Maybe he could blame it on exhaustion.

"Ah." Dumbledore's hands were cold, but Merlin let him look. "I suppose it's a good thing that you are who you are, no?" Dumbledore released him and waved away the wafting smell of roast chicken that's not actually chicken and wasn't roast. "I am honored to lend you all of Hogwarts's resources, Emrys, and would be delighted to show you around."

"How do you know that name?" Only the druids knew him by that, and this man was not a druid. No one here, not that he'd seen, was. This whole place was suffocating. Or maybe liberating. Merlin was beyond knowing.

Dumbledore fed Fawkes something that looked vaguely like a mouse. "I suppose I was preemptive. You are in no danger here, Merlin. This is a school of witchcraft and wizardry, and magic, training young witches and wizards to control it, is our purpose." Right. Merlin still couldn't shake his nagging sense of paranoia. "Don't fear. No one here is able to contact any of your comrades to tell them of your abilities."

"Why not?"

Dumbledore held his smile, but Merlin was sure it didn't go past his beard. "Ah. To us here and now, you are medieval history." That sounded almost threatening, and Merlin had had plenty of death threats of his own and on Arthur's behalf. "You are well over a thousand years into your future." Fawkes cooed. Merlin shifted the sword so that he could dig its tip into the grey stone. A thousand years. Dumbledore had seemed trustworthy so far, but that was a stretch. Then again, this was a school of magic where there were transparent floating people and people using small sticks as weapons.

"Alright." Merlin blinked. Dumbledore raised his brow. "Er, that's startling, I mean, and I don't know how it happened, and I need to get back, but unless you know how to do that right now, I need to do some research, and that's going to take a lot of time, and I just want to sleep." He fiddled with the sword. "So, do you know how to fix this?"

"I'm afraid not." Well, there went that option. "Time travel is not a commonly practiced discipline due to its danger, although, I do suppose there may be a book or two in the library. We will acquaint you with the grounds tomorrow, yes? But for now, I suppose you wish to acquaint yourself with a bed."

"Yes!" Was that too vehement?

Dumbledore chuckled and stood, and Merlin followed suit with the sword he could barely lift anymore. It was just one of those days, apparently. One of those days with talking paintings and moving staircases and enough magic to destroy an empire, but right then, Merlin could hardly care less. Somewhere in this mess there was a bed, and that was far more than could be said for most of his misadventures.

* * *

 **AN**

 **I suppose this officially is no longer a one-shot; I have the basics ready to go for this. Still, this will probably remain my airport fic, so updates are going to be relatively infrequent.**


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